LONDON, England — Double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson could break the national record on her way to winning the 100m World Championships title, says coach Stephen Francis. But he insists the conditions must be right.

“I know that everybody who runs want to run personal bests. I expect she wants to run a personal best as well, and in her situation, if she runs a personal best, she will break the national record. I am reasonably sure that she wants to run a PB,” Francis told the Jamaica Observer.

Thompson is Jamaica’s joint national record holder with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce with a splendid 10.70 clocking and she is a heavy favourite to strike gold here in London.

“I am not sure what everybody else is capable of. But what I do know is that she is capable of going as fast as she has this season,” noted Francis.

He continued: “If other persons can run that then she might have problems. But I honestly don’t have any idea what other people can run. But I know that she is ready to go and probably can go faster than she has ever done.”

Francis said atmospheric conditions can impact an athletes performance one way or another.

“In sprinting there are a lot of variables — wind, rain, type of track, temperature. I don’t think it’s all going to fall into place for London. It’s very windy at the moment and it’s very cool.

“But I am sure if things fall in place, I mean she doesn’t have to get it at the maximum permitted limit, but she needs to have certainly nothing negative. It can be cool and not sunny and slightly windy. It just depends on where the cards fall on that time,” said Francis.

Thompson has the two fastest times in the world and three of the top-five times in 10.71, 10.78 and 10.87 seconds and will bow into action today at 2:45 pm in heat two.

Meanwhile, Francis has allayed fears of Thompson’s injury scare when she had to run in training spikes in the last couple of events.

““I think she will be okay for her races. She had some issues with her feet… and had to do most of her training with spikes with an elevated heel to protect her problem. So we have had a relatively conservative approach to training for the last couple of months,” he revealed.

“It’s not a sprint spikes and it’s heavy, but it’s better to use that than run the risk of her having problems using the other spikes, so we try to minimise the amount of time she spends in her racing spikes as much as possible. She only runs in it, she doesn’t warm-up or she doesn’t train in it,” Francis explained.

— Howard Walker